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Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (/æˈkʊfoʊ ɑːdˈoʊ/ (listen) a-KUU-foh ad-OH; born William Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo; 29 March 1944) is the President of Ghana, in office since January 2017. He previously served as Attorney General from 2001 to 2003 and as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2003 to 2007.

Akufo-Addo first ran for President in 2008 and again in 2012, both times as the candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), but was defeated on both occasions by NDC candidates: John Atta Mills in 2008 and John Dramani Mahama in 2012. He was chosen as the NPP's candidate for a third time in the 2016 elections and defeated Mahama in the first round (winning 53.85% of the votes) which was an unprecedented defeat and the first time in the history of Ghana.

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was born in Accra, Ghana, to a prominent Ghanaian royal and political family as the son of Edwardand Adeline Akuffo-Addo. His father Edward Akufo-Addo from Akropong-Akuapem was Ghana's third Chief Justice from 1966 to 1970, Chairman of the 1967–68 Constitutional Commission and the non-executive President of Ghana from 1970 till 1972. Akufo-Addo's maternal grandfather was Nana Sir Ofori Atta, King of Akyem Abuakwa, who was a member of the Executive Council of the Governor of the Gold Coast before Ghana's independence. He is a nephew of Kofi Asante Ofori-Atta and William Ofori Atta. His great-uncle was J. B. Danquah, another member of The Big Six.

He started his primary education at the Government Boys School, Adabraka, and later at the Rowe Road School (now Kinbu), both in Accra Central. He went to England to study for his O-Level and A-Level examinations at Lancing College, Sussex, where he was nicknamed 'Billy'. He began the Philosophy, Politics and Economics course at New College, Oxford in 1962, but left soon afterwards. He returned to Ghana in 1962 to teach at Accra Academy , before going to read Economics at the University of Ghana, Legon, in 1964, earning a BSc(Econ) degree in 1967. He subsequently joined Inner Temple and trained as a lawyer under the apprenticeship system known as the Inns of court, where no formal law degree was required. He was called to the English Bar (Middle Temple) in July 1971. He was called to the Ghanaian bar in July 1975. Akufo-Addo worked with the Paris office of the U.S. law firm Coudert Brothers. In 1979, he co-founded the law firm Prempeh and Co.